Bene Office Furniture

Living Spaces: Brand worlds & flagship stores

There is something to the saying that spaces have character. Regardless of whether we want to work, learn, teach, communicate, entertain or relax in them – the space "created" for this purpose usually makes a clear reference to the idiosyncrasies of its users and their activities. But whether or not it "functions" is another question and depends entirely on whether it reaches us emotionally. In the final analysis, impact really is more than the quadratic root of room height + wall colour + floor space.


When you’ve got a six pack or a great body you want to highlight it. So do the people who clothe you. The "sales advisors" at the cult fashion label from NYC, Abercrombie & Fitch, all of them the young and beautiful people that we would love to be, are part of a shopping concept that wants one thing above all – to be a sensual experience. And that in the broadest meaning of the term: A perfectly staged lighting concept is added to the elaborate multi-level interior architecture of the A&F flagship stores, as well as opulent colours, a dominating musical setting and omnipresent scents that accompany the visitor long after they have left the store. A&F’s target audience loves the beautiful and expensive world of luxury. And wherever the next store opens, as in Milan in 2009, there are always hundreds of brand fans waiting hours before the doors open to their new shopping shrine.

The trend is easy to explain. First, globalisation makes wares available anywhere, anytime; second, the Internet and online shops have opened up new and convenient sales channels for consumers. This is why the physical presentation of brands has constantly had to outdo itself in recent years to keep urbane, demanding and sought-after customers in their shops.

The effective and successful idea behind this is called three-dimensional brand staging, and the somewhat older term experiential marketing is giving way to the hip idea of a brand experience. Stores with great staging, with corporate architecture, with intelligent events and pure emotion – these are the customised temptations for a modern clientele that is ready to buy.


Immersion in the microcosm

Of course, it isn’t always about fashion, even if all of the new U.S. labels like Hollister or forever21 are paving the way. If you have ever visited one of Swarovski’s flagship stores knows you know that this also works in other branches. Over ten years after Crystal Worlds in Wattens, the first flagship store in the Ginza district in Tokyo was created in collaboration with the Japanese designer Tokujin Yashioka. The facade, with its innumerable gleaming silver prisms, seems to open the door to another world that shines forth in white splendour. Crystals "interspersed" in the floor welcome visitors. The store isn’t named the "Crystal Forest" for nothing. Crystal branches, steps, a tree trunk, a curtain that resembles a waterfall – they weren’t stingy with the products. And all of this without overwhelming visitors. The walls are bedecked with reflective stones that lend visual depth to the space. The white and silver coolness is the perfect stage for the trendy pieces of jewellery and accessories.


Symbiotic: Architecture & Brand

There is no doubt about it: top brands are right to hire top architects for their stores with the goal of creating unique environments for their products. Impressive examples of the breath-taking combination of architecture, design, product and spatial experience can also be found in the Milan, Berlin and New York flagship stores of Bisazza, a world-renowned manufacturer of glass mosaics for interior and exterior spaces. Designed by Fabio Novembre, each location has been created individually and presents the product as an integrated component of the store, giving the space its character.

The star architect from Milan also designed 70+ stores around the world for Stuart Weitzman, the Swiss shoe designer for the rich and beautiful The same design concept is used in all of the shops, with slight variations. The idea: the store as a valuable gift box. The essential element is a kind of endless loop that runs repeatedly through the ceiling and walls in an interwoven pattern throughout the entire store, creating the display area for designer shoes and handbags for the women of the world. For an unmistakable appearance.

Automobile brands also like to celebrate their individual lifestyles in staged spaces. Whether it’s the upper crust of BMW, Mercedes and Lamborghini, or the middle-class market participants like Hyundai and Opel – they all rely on realistic presentation visuals to touch and astound. The polarity between the mobile product and an elaborate, localised architecture often makes the solutions both exciting and surprising at the same time. After six months of renovations, the L´Atelier Renault was reopened on the Champs Élysées in Paris in July 2011. Architect Franck Hammoutène has created an exciting, modular space that adapts to a broad variety of events, exhibits and usages. Including a restaurant and bar – a real highlight of Parisian gastronomy that has to be taken seriously. BTW, in the past eleven years since the atelier was opened, 25 million visitors have passed through Renault’s doors!


Kindred Spirits

Maybe their relationship is very special: fashion and architecture, as creative disciplines, have always been closely related and always had plenty of tales to tell each other. The one as the protective and representative shell of the other. And both focus totally on creativity, aesthetics and design. Renzo Piano designed a tower made of 13,000 glass bricks for Hermès in Tokyo; Massimiliano Fuksas built a tower with a Perspex facade for Armani; and – as is well known – Rem Kohlhaas created a versatile brand world for Prada in New York. Here "real life" is also celebrated, even if it’s a life at the end of the rainbow, with VIP areas, cafés, luxury restaurants, catwalks, event levels, exhibition spaces, or even wellness zones and spas, in addition to the actual sales floor.

Ralph Lauren’s flagship store at 867 Madison Avenue, NY, is considered one of the first completely composed lifestyle stores. Housed in the "Rhinelander Mansion", which dates back to 1890, the store now welcomes visitors to another world with wood panelling, hearth, paintings, dignified furniture, a handmade wooden staircase, cashmere-decked walls and the atmosphere of a private club.

Nike opened a completely cool, stylishly designed and nevertheless enormously popular variation of the flagship store with its store in the Harajuku district in Tokyo in November 2010. The architecture was created by Masamichi Katayama and his firm, Wonderwall Inc. The athletic experiential world stretches over three floors, designed down to the last detail as a "curated exhibit", with "shoe installations" hanging from the ceiling and chandeliers made of 300 white shoe models. Reduction as exaggeration – and vice versa. A visual look that steals the show, even in Japan’s high-intensity metropolises.


The glass Apple

Sometimes flagship stores even manage to become real landmarks in urban spaces. Like the Apple Store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. On the southeastern corner of Central Park, right in front of the GM building, there is a glass cube (currently being renovated), in the middle of which floats the Apple logo. Nothing else is visible. Because the actual store is located below – the cube, designed to be both simple yet ultra-striking, is just the entrance. The glass staircase winds around a cylindrical elevator down into the sales room.

There are no visual distractions there either; reduction to the essential is the motto. Clear, catchy, pure – that defines the store. Wooden tables, stone floors and light are reserved and let the products take centre stage.

The fact that flagship stores also have urban development dimensions can be seen in Peek & Cloppenburg’s latest cosmopolitan house in Vienna. Critics remain divided as to whether the English star architect David Chipperfield has managed to realise his plan, right in the middle of Vienna – which is part of UNESCO world culture heritage – to create a statement that bridges the divide between tradition and modernity. In any event, the building is a tectonically powerful, no-frills construct that serves as a counterpoint. And a statement of a popular brand.


Pop-ups, and not just on the computer

PS: However, if you aren’t so much into shopping at showy events but would rather hunt spontaneously on a smaller scale, then we have an interesting piece of information for you as well: Look out for the so-called pop-up retail stores. With increasing frequency, temporary (designer) shops are popping up around the city; they stay for a couple of days, weeks or months, and then move on to another city. Locations can pretty much be anywhere: a top business location in the centre of the town, a gallery, a loft, a former laundromat or even a private flat. Vacant made its name as the pioneer of this concept in the USA. In the meantime, the number of small but exciting and exclusive showrooms is growing elsewhere as well. In Vienna, for example, it’s worth keeping your an eye on What about the future at www.whatatf.com. Here too, it’s all about having an experience and interactive communication.


Ronnie Sambor
Brigitte Schedl-Richter